1. Words of Comfort
MATTHEW 15:32-38 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I
have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me
now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want
to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way." The
disciples said to him, "Where are we to get enough bread in the
desert to feed so great a crowd?" Jesus asked them, "How many
loaves have you?" They said, "Seven, and a few small fish."
Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the
seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke
them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave
them to the crowds. And all of them ate and were filled; and
they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and
children.
The story of Jesus and the feeding of the multitudes is the only one that is included in all four of the Gospels, a testimony to the power of this image of him as a person of great compassion. I don’t want to debate the apparently miraculous aspects of this story, how Jesus could manage to feed thousands people with just seven loaves of bread and a few fish. There are those who believe that the real miracle wasn’t so much the multiplication of the meager provisions so much as it was the opening of hearts to share what food they had with others, the inspiring of compassion. Compassion is basic to not just being Christian, but being human. And the Gospels are full of all kinds of stories which picture Jesus meeting immediate human need – healing the sick, comforting the sorrowful, including the outcast, feeding the hungry. It’s the first level of “community action.” As Gandhi once said, “To the hungry, God will first appear in the form of bread.”
There are many ways in which we offer bread to the hungry, or to draw a phrase from the hymn we will sing as a response to each of these sections, “words of comfort.” When disaster strikes, a hurricane, and earthquake, a famine, we send our money which translates into food and medical help and shelter, often through organizations like Church World Service. Down at First Congregational Church in the District they sponsor the Dinner Program for Homeless Women. In the Sonoran Desert of the Southern Arizona, Humane Borders sets up water stations so that migrants seeking a better life for their famililes do not die of thirst. We bring in casseroles for S.O.M.E. and Thanksgiving Food baskets for the Shaw Community Ministry. And in our own congregation we have Sue Kirk, Executive Director of Bethesda Cares, whose agency is the face of compassion in our community....
{Sue Kirk gave a Mission Moment}
2. Words of Vision
ACTS 3:1-10 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at
the hour of prayer, at three o'clock in the afternoon. And a
man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him
daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so
that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When
he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked
them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and
said, "Look at us." And he fixed his attention on them,
expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I
have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk." And he took
him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his
feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and
began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and
leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and
praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to
sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and
they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened
to him.
There is an old saying “Give someone a fish, you feed them for today. Teach them to fish, and you feed them for a lifetime.” When Peter and John encountered the beggar at the Beautiful Gate, they could have ignored him, like we often do, or they could have put something in his cup, so that at least he’d be able to buy lunch, but they offered him something even better. “In the name of Jesus, stand up and walk.” And he did. Again, not to get into an discussion of the seemingly miraculous healing, the point is that it often better to give a hand up rather than a hand out. In offering “words of vision”, helping people to help themselves, we can do more good than by simply meeting the immediate need. Jesus often did this – in healing the sick, offering forgiveness to those mired in their past, including the outcast in the community, he helped them look to the future and empower them for what they might become.
Hardly a week goes by when someone doesn’t call the church asking for help – usually they want money so they can pay the electric bill or the rent, or for transportation or medicine. We have a rule that we don’t give out cash, and try to direct them to a place like Bethesda Cares – which we support – that will be able to give them the help they do need, which almost always involves a plan to help them help themselves. It’s our way of saying: we won’t give you silver and gold but we can offer you something more.
Most of the agencies that offer immediate aid also work with individuals to deal with the reasons they need help in the first place – financial counselling, job training; when our Wider Church Ministries sends missionaries out they are often teachers, and agricultural specialists. They don’t just bring in water, they work with people to dig wells and build dams. Some of you volunteer next door at Briggs in their ESL program. Others of us go down to Marie Reed and spend a hour a week reading – not to, but with – students. With the UCC we support Campus ministry at the University of Maryland and UDC and NOVA, where ministry is done with and not just for students, giving them a “vision” for their future and a way to find meaning in life. All these are ways of echoing Peter and John, “In the name of Jesus, stand up!”
Beth Rogers-Witte came here three years ago as a member of our Volunteer Corps. The spirit if volunteerism has stayed with her, as she just spent four months in Southeast Asia, in the wake of the Tsunami, and she will now tell her story....
{Beth gave a Mission Moment}
3. Words of Challenge
LUKE 4:16-21 When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought
up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his
custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the
place where it was written: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim
the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll,
gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in
the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them,
"Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
They say that a rising tide lifts all boats. True – but what if you don’t have a boat?
Our third lesson – and level of action – is about changing the world, challenging the system, addressing the big issues of why some people don’t have boats. Or to use an earlier analogy, You can give someone a fish and feed them for the day, you can teach them to fish and feed them for a lifetime; but sometimes you have to improve the fishery.
Jesus preached his very first sermon in his hometown of Nazareth -- a city we remember every Sunday in our partnership with Christ Episcopal Church -- and used a text from the prophet Isaiah, and said This is what my ministry is ultimately about – to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind – the first two kinds of community action – and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. It was this last one that got him into trouble. The year of the Lord’s favor is a reference to a basic practice that was supposed to be carried out in ancient Israel known as the “year of Jubilee.” According to the Law set down in Levitcus, the moral code that was supposed to make Israel a place of liberty and justice for ALL, every seventh year was to be a year of sabbath, in which the land rested and was restored, and after every seven cycles of sabbaticals, or in the fiftieth year, there was to be a “year of jubilee” in which all the inequities that had been built up over the previous fifty years would be set right. Debts would be forgiven – because if you couldn’t pay them back after fifty years, you probably never could, and you’d be caught in a cycle of poverty and indenturedness from which you could never escape. So to level the playing field, and make life fair for everyone, everything was supposed to be set right. A year of jubilee. And this is what Jesus called for in his sermon, saying that these words of Isaiah were going to be fulfilled in his ministry.
Evidence is that the year of jubilee was never really carried out in practice, likely because in those days the powerful weren’t too eager to give up some of their power. Those at the top still don’t like to see they system challenged. The verses that follow tell of the crowd running their hometown boy out of town, very nearly lynching him right there, a fate that was put off until he’d so threatened the authorities with his talk of a new world and higher allegiances that they had no choice but to do him in. It’s not easy to be challengers of the status quo, to be prophetic, but there are those of us who still believe that if we are followers of Jesus, then the prophecy must be fulfilled in us.
For as Martin Luther King once said, “True compassion is more than throwing coins at a beggar. It demands of our humanity that if we live in a society that produces beggars, we are morally commanded to restructure that society.”
Our UCC Office of Justice and Witness does advocacy work on Caiptol Hill – and each sends subscribers an email message about one thing they can do to make a difference.
Our church is a charter member of Action in Montgomery - community organizing to change things for the better.
Our Middle East Committee also raises awareness and issues –
{Frances Stickles gave a Mission Moment on Middle East Committee}
Prayers of the People
Prayer is a form of Community Action. It’s not so much asking God to feed the hungry, or help the fallen to rise, or break the chains of oppression, although God certainly provides the power to do all of that. But it is a kind of reporting for duty. As someone once said, I looked around at all the hunger and poverty and misery and I asked God why God didn’t do something... and God replied, I was about to ask you the same thing. And so we pray for food, but we also pray that our hearts will be opened to share what we already have. We pray for healing, and also pray that we will be strengthened in our work, and that we will be able to meet those whom we seek to help as partners, and see in their faces the face of Christ. And then we offer the most subversive prayer of all, each and every Sunday when we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth...” For when you pray for God’s realm to be realized on this earth, you are praying that the realms that currently rule the earth be overthrown, or at least be relegated to their proper place in the grand scheme of things. It is indeed subversive. And when we pray for those in authority, as we are bid to do, we are not necessarily asking God to bless their plans or actions, but to truly touch their hearts and lives in ways that will lead them to be the leaders we hope they would be.
And so as we join as partners with others in Christ’s service, bringing our words of comfort, our words of vision, our words of challenge said with care, as we join as partners with those whom we serve, in acts of compassion, acts of empowerment, acts of advocacy, let us now join as a community of faith and sense the Spirit in our midst, connecting us with one another, with all of humanity, and with the Eternal. Let us be together in prayer.
Holy One, Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer
Source of Love, Breath of Life--
We come this morning grateful for this day – especially on an autumn day like this one, the crisp air and the scent of leaves heightens our sense of gratitude for all the gifts that make our lives worthwhile – in silence, we offer to you our words of thanks for all the blessings of this life....
We pray this day for those who are not able to share fully in these blessings, those to whom our hearts reach out in compassion – the sick, the sorrowful, the hungry, and especially those whose lives are upended by flood and earthquake and war, in the Gulf Coast, Central America, Pakistan, Iraq and Afganistan. We remember those in our families, and in our church family...... May your healing, loving spirit surround them and give them peace and strength.
And we pray for ourselves, that we may not grow weary in well-doing. There is so much that demands our attention, our skills, our resources, our compassion, and we often feel fatigued by it all, empty and dry, and wonder how much we are really able to give. And yet we know that we are your hands and feet in this world, that you do call us to offer those words and deeds of comfort, of vision, of challenge, so that this world and all its beings may become more and more like your realm. Inspire us, we pray, with new vision, new courage, new will and new generosity, for we know that you have already given us all that we need. Bless the ministries represented here today, and all that we do in response to your great love, made known in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
